LETTER: How would the world look without US involvement?

Readers should pause at Robert Lee’s Sept. 23 assertion that “America does not need, nor … want, the responsibility that the world wishes to push upon us.” He surely knows something would fill that global vacuum; something that he wouldn’t like.

America’s preeminence in the world was established in facing the daunting challenges of World War II. No other nation was going to credibly lead that effort, then check the communist-inspired provocations of following decades. We will never know if picking up the mantle of world leadership through the League of Nations after WWI would have prevented WWII; but it seemed wise for America not to risk it again.

Perhaps some Saturday Mr. Lee can help us explore a world where America raised its drawbridge after 1945. Our currency is the world’s standard; and our economy is the world’s strongest. All of that requires active global engagement.

How many gripes have been refereed by U.S. and western diplomats at, say, the U.N. General Assembly rather than upon far-off battlefields? What would Europe look like now without NATO? One Kim Jong-Un is proving tough enough; imagine a world with a few more like him.

I question, further, how much safety and security we gain from a border wall. Gen. George Patton described fixed fortifications as “… a monument to the stupidity of man,” as they can be defeated. Why should we chase that false sense of security? Walls have rarely presented a good message to outsiders. They tell the rest of the world to keep their deadbeats and offspring that Mr. Lee had just as soon not feed — and keep their Einsteins and Wernher von Brauns, too.

It’s fair to question just how serious we are about immigration reform. In 2013, the U.S .Senate passed a bill with a remarkable 68 bi-partisan votes. It would enhance border security while creating a stringent path to citizenship. Future immigrants would be subjected to a merit-based system valuing education and skills.

The bill died, unfortunately, at the hands of U.S. House leaders more concerned about denying credit to President Obama.

Few things in this world are more treasured and envied than natural-born U.S. citizenship. Free upon birth here, it still carries a price.